It is well known in the airborne launching of stores such as missiles, bombs or weather monitors to utilize an aircraft equipped with an ejector for ejecting the stores clear of the aircraft upon release or launch of the store. Such ejectors typically are intended to eject the store transversely from the carrier and clear of the aircraft upon release of the store from its carrier in order to ensure that the store will traverse the turbulent air flow around the aircraft without incurring undesirable deviations from the desired pitch and yaw attitude. Such deviations may cause the store to strike the aircraft or may result in store targeting and delivery error. Disclosure of prior ejectors for airborne launching systems is included in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,826,120, 3,756,545, 3,936,019, 3,960,051, 3,974,990, 4,088,287, 4,092,762, and 4,187,761.
The prior art of ejector systems for airborne launch systems has commonly included pyrotechnic type devices in which, upon ignition of a pyrotechnic charge, an explosion of hot gases is channeled to an extendable ejector device. The ejector device is in contact with a store such that the expanding gases rapidly extend the ejector to forcefully eject the store clear of the aircraft. Such prior pyrotechnic ejector systems exhibit considerable sensitivity to the quantity, composition and quality of the explosive load in the cartridge, are subject to post-ignition residue accumulation in the ejector system which necessitates frequent cleaning and maintenance, are often limited to a single shot operating cycle for a given mission and typically do not accomodate in-flight rearming.
Combined fluid/mechanical ejectors are also known, as for example the ejector described in the above cited U.S. Pat. No. 4,095,762, according to which a compressed-gas powered piston arrangement acts upon a closed volume of hydraulic fluid to deliver hydraulic fluid flow to fluid operable ejector pistons upon release of a mechanical latch which retains the fluid drive pistons in a cocked or ready position. As in other prior ejector systems, this prior system requires a mechanical latch for cocking or setting the ejectors and for mechanical release or actuation of the ejectors. Thus, it is possible that the ejectors might be actuated independently of the release of the store from its carrier, or that the ejectors might fail to actuate upon release of the store from the carrier. In addition, the closed hydraulic system offers no apparent possibility of establishing and maintaining a specified hydraulic fluid pressure or of maintaining contact between the ejector pistons and the store to be ejected prior to ejector actuation. These shortcomings may adversely affect the reliability and uniformity of ejector operation.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 489,644 of Larry G. Ellis et. al. is distinguished from the above mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,095,762 in that it discloses a hydraulic ejector system wherein a hydraulic power source is operable, through controlled valving of hydraulic fluid, to cock or set the ejector system for an ejection cycle and to initiate the ejection cycle without need of mechanical latches, releases, or other such ejector trigger mechanisms apart from the sotre carrier latches. The system of application Ser. No. 489,644 thus alleviates some of the shortcomings of other prior ejector systems in that it is cocked or set by charging a hydraulic actuation system, including hydraulic ejector pistons, with hydraulic fluid pressure such that the ejector pistons will extend under fluid impetus to contact the store and maintain fluid pressure biased contact therewith. Upon release of the respective store from the carrier the ejector pistons extend under the applied fluid pressure impetus to eject the store without any requirement for interaction between a mechanical store release device and a mechanical ejector actuation device.